���On the subject of the reporting of scientific news in the media, Chris Green wrote [snip]: >The "news" is a commercial product. Commercial products >are routinely adjusted to ensure that they sell to the greatest >number of people at the highest price (or rather, those that are >not so adjusted, quickly cease to be commercial products). >Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are >not scientists (as if no scientist ever "turned a phrase" in order to >make his or her work seem more exciting to the public), and certainly >no journalist's boss is a scientist. Their values lie in a different place.
In reply to which Stephen Black replied, quoting Chris first: >>Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are >>not scientists >Some are both. Not all are shameless hacks intent on >sensationalism. Some write excellent and intellectually honest >accounts. As you note, there are good science journalists. I agree with Stephen that the world of the media, and journalists themselves, are just a wee bit more complex than Chris would have it. And I think it is important to distinguish between reports on matters in which science figures by non-science journalists, and those written by science correspondents. (A casual check on Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" blog reveals that many of the articles that he rightly castigates are not written by science correspondents.) Writing from this side of the pond, I can assure you that there *are* intellectually honest science journalists, for example Mark Henderson of the London Times and Robert Matthews, former science correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph and now freelance. To suggest that such journalists are little more than newspaper hacks is simply untrue. I see that even poor old Ben Goldacre of "Bad Science" fame can't escape Chris's castigation: >But what he has done is figure out a way to make good science >journalism "sexy": he badmouths other journalists (and scientists) >who do exactly what they are paid to do (viz., make science >salable to newspaper readers). It's good old "gotcha" journalism. As Chris is evidently unable to credit anyone in the media business with any integrity he represents (or misrepresents) even the invaluable work that Goldacre does in terms of hack journalism – he's found a way of making even good journalism "sexy". Not that I think that Ben Goldacre escapes criticism completely (who does?), though in this instance it is in relation to his blog rather than to his published Guardian column. I note that among the topics listed on his blog he has a section headed "Media" containing links to his blog articles. This includes several British national newspapers, but missing are The Guardian and the Guardian-owned Sunday paper The Observer. Now this can't be because no doubtful scientific stories have been run by these newspapers, because a quick search reveals that Goldacre himself had written on at least a couple of Observer articles on his blog (with at least one that he published in the Guardian, about a major autism/MMR scare story in the Observer) – not to mention an Observer article as recent as 20 September this year that warned that "health officials will not be able to stem the growth of the worldwide H1N1 pandemic in developing countries. If the virus takes hold in the poorest nations, millions could die and the economies of fragile countries could be destroyed." Incidentally, this latter story is of interest in that (a) it was not written by a science correspondent, and (b) it could not really have been said to have been sensationalised by the journalist, as he was simply basing his story on a UN report (though one would hope that a responsible science journalist would have treated the report with a modicum of scepticism). This illustrates that there are numerous complexities in the reporting of science in the media, ranging from the extreme position taken by Chris, to the more nuanced position of Stephen's. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org ---------------------------------------------------------- Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains sblack Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:30:07 -0800 I said, deploring a news article on the dangers of pot for teenage brains from a report which failed to mention that the research was on rats: > Why they did it is obvious. Studies demonstrating the dangers of > cannabis for teenagers are sexy; such studies for rats, not so > much. If you want publicity, you go with what is sexy, and hide > what can impair it. It's also wrong. > Chris Green replied: > What is it that surprises you about this Stephen? Nothing. As I said, why they did is obvious. I was deploring it. > Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are not > scientists Some are both. Not all are shameless hacks intent on sensationalism. Some write excellent and intellectually honest accounts. As you note, there are good science journalists. What I was bemoaning was not that a journalist tried to foist this crap on us, but that it came straight from the press release of the McGill University Public Relations and Communication Office. Here's what I said: "It's not the fault of the science daily journalist, though, because this egregious misinformation is present in the original press release from McGill University. Shame, McGill! http://muhc.ca/newsroom/news/cannabis-and-adolescence- dangerous-cocktail or http://tinyurl.com/yhyedn5 Interestingly, I just checked the news report on this as it appeared in our major local paper, the Montreal Gazette, and I see that the reporter showed some initiative in restoring the missing information about it being a rat study (at http://tinyurl.com/yjzh4uh). The reporter also elicited this gem from the senior investigator, "Although the research was carried out on laboratory rats, Gobbi said, one can assume the same effects on the human brain." Did she say that with a straight face? I liked some of the comments, particularly this one from Logic Barbeque: " "Just because marijuana is a plant doesn't mean it's harmless.'" What, really? And here I thought poisonous mushrooms couldn't hurt you." "Gazette: your headline should read "Toking teen rats risk brain damage". Please correct it. Thanks!" And this one, from ER Doctor: "This "research" was done in rats with WIN55,212-2, a very powerful synthetic full cannabinoid agonist. It cannot be cavalierly extrapolated to say anything concrete about adolescent human use of cannabis, a weak partial cannabinoid agonist agent." > There's nothing surprisingly > egregious about this particular article, is there? Yes. I've never seen a university press release, which should have been vetted by the authors and presumably ran with their approval, hide the fact that the research was in animals. That's disturbing, and well worth fulminating over. Or maybe I'm just excitable. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl...@ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains Christopher D. Green Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:47:35 -0800 sbl...@ubishops.ca wrote: > > I never heard a rat called a "teenager" before this > study, Canadian or not. > > A teenage rat would be extremely elderly! > Why they did it is obvious. Studies demonstrating the dangers of > cannabis for teenagers are sexy; such studies for rats, not so > much. If you want publicity, you go with what is sexy, and hide > what can impair it. It's also wrong. > What is it that surprises you about this Stephen? The "news" is a commercial product. Commercial products are routinely adjusted to ensure that they sell to the greatest number of people at the highest price (or rather, those that are not so adjusted, quickly cease to be commercial products). Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are not scientists (as if no scientist ever "turned a phrase" in order to make his or her work seem more exciting to the public), and certainly no journalist's boss is a scientist. Their values lie in a different place. There are, to be sure, some good science journalists. Ben Goldacre of the Guardian comes to mind. But what he has done is figure out a way to make good science journalism "sexy": he badmouths other journalists (and scientists) who do exactly what they are paid to do (viz., make science salable to newspaper readers). It's good old "gotcha" journalism. It is, of course, worth pointing out that the the pot-hurts-brains article was BS, but being outraged seems a bit, well, disingenuous. Almost all reporting on illegal drugs in the mainstream media is BS, and has been since the 1960s -- from pot-is-addictive, to LSD-causes-genetic-damage, to crack-babies, to the suburban-crystal-meth-epidemic. It's all BS. There's nothing surprisingly egregious about this particular article, is there? Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
